Glad you liked it, Rebecca.
It's from a book of poems very personal, & working in an eerie way to
connect the speaker's jealousy to larger political concerns, or
vice-versa. Very powerful in places.
Doug
On 25-Jan-05, at 9:39 AM, Rebecca Seiferle wrote:
> Thanks much for this poem, Doug, I like it very much, especially the
> way it sort
> of breaks in the middle, here
>
>> if it is love that fingers in the mind
>> wake with a touch
>> curious
>> I remember only what was lost
>>
>> plotting my own purges and despairs
>
> as if breaking, interrupted by feeling, into some deep questioning of
> oneself,
> that troubling and being troubled, where these losses and lists
> intersect, so
> many thanks,
>
> Rebecca
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 08:58:50 -0700
>> From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Gulag system
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>> Some of the enws has been out there.
>>
>> I'm reminded of a poem by Canadian writer, Eli Mandel:
>>
>> Beware the Sick Lion
>>
>> They say Stalin at night
>> sleepless in the suburbs of Moscow
>> drew up long lists of enemies
>>
>> think of that dreadful paper
>>
>> to be sentenced by the pen
>> of an insomniac sleep-writing
>>
>> new stars wheel over Spain
>> bulldozers cut roads through groves
>> in Africa moors rule who once ruled Spain
>>
>> sleepless I pace before barred windows
>> fake-andalusian arches and toward sea
>> a Parador only cuts lines against the dark
>> where dark Greeks and Phoenicians sailed
>>
>> if it is love that fingers in the mind
>> wake with a touch
>> curious
>> I remember only what was lost
>>
>> plotting my own purges and despairs
>>
>> & as a poet, connecting it to questioning himself...
>>
>> This has been a very interesting conversation. And I too was grateful
>> to get the url for the Ash article.
>>
>> Doug
>> Douglas Barbour
>> Department of English
>> University of Alberta
>> Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
>> (780) 436 3320
>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>>
>> The poet is ecstatic, having dreamt of this visit for weeks.
>> He takes Erato’s face, dribbling and wild, between his hands
>>
>> and kisses her gently as if she were a runaway teenager.
>>
>> Diana Hartog
>
>
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
The poet is ecstatic, having dreamt of this visit for weeks.
He takes Erato’s face, dribbling and wild, between his hands
and kisses her gently as if she were a runaway teenager.
Diana Hartog
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